Keyword Search:

LOAN WORDS

LANGUAGE Katakana

Over the centuries, the Japanese adapted many words from other languages: A large amount of Chinese words was adapted together with the Chinese writing system in the 5th century. Those words are naturally written in kanji (Chinese characters). More recently, most loan words were adapted from English, Portuguese, and Dutch, but also from other Asian languages, German (especially words in the fields of medicine and mountain hiking ), French, and Italian (especially from the fields of music and food). Most of those loan words are written in katakana. For naming new inventions like the television or the internet, the Japanese often do not create new own words but use loan words, nowadays mostly from the English language. The Japanese pronunciation of those loan words can be rather different from the original pronunciation: e.g. curtain=kaaten, elevator=elebeetaa, girl=gaaru. In addition, those loan words are often abbreviated: e.g. suupaa=supermarket, kilo=kilometer and kilogram, depaato=department store, waapuro=word processor. The Japanese also create new Japanized English words. The most famous example is the salaryman, a Japanese word for a typical Japanese company worker.

JAPLISH Introduction to Japanese-English (Evolving English Home) Great pages about Japanized English: lists of words and more. Shepherd-Loanwords, A Pitfall for All Students (Internet TESL Journal) About loan words: about their history and the troubles they cause. Japanized English ("Iron Will" Dawes) Some funny examples. No links yet.